Playing the Darth card

Buried in weekend news was the Dub coming out of his closet to mention that he knew about the Torture Dialogues and approved them — this closes any question about his culpability; we know its wrong, he doesn’t — even John Ashcroft had the decency to be nervous, but not our Dubby. Bless the ACLU for pouncing on it, demanding investigation by independent counsel.

As Jill Hussein C. wrote on the Brilliant for Breakfast blog questioning the psycho-sexual dynamics of the meeting:

Think about it — a president who used to shove firecrackers up the asses of frogs and light them to watch the frogs explode. A vice-president who shot a friend in the face. A female Secretary of State in fuck-me boots who gets off on torture. An attorney general who’s afraid of calico cats, offended by a statue’s breasts, and anoints himself with vegetable oil. And he’s the SANE one, the one who was troubled by the whole proceeding.

I can’t think of any topic more potent to open a necessary conversation about War Crimes; but I’m not holding my breath. George has made it through 7 years of assault on democracy without paying a price — and now, when he’s weakened by embarrassingly dismal poll numbers and ignored by the presidential candidates lest they “get some on them,” we can’t believe for an instant that he’s a watered-down version of himself; he’s still the “commander-in-chief” [which, I might add, is not a title … it’s a description of duties.]

This week’s outrages include a new system of spying satellites aimed at the American public and a “deal” for “enduring” commitment from America that the Iraqi Parliament will vote on … and we won’t. Until we can drive a stake through this guys heart, the mayhem continues — and Iran awaits.

First article: MSM garbage-in, garbage-out — then a fascinating collection of wrinkles. No overt case can be made for bombing Iran, given our circumstances; everything is going on, as usual, behind the curtain. And just when you hoped the Neo-Conniving had ceased due to lack of interest, Darth Cheney is stumping for a big smack down! Thankfully, nobody on that side of the pond is interested. Uncle Dick is running into resistance from the Arabs who are turning more often to Russia as the “reasonable” ones — think of that! Woe.

Of course, it would only take two — USA and Isreal — to launch this little project. All through the Iranian conversation, there runs an Armageddon reference that you can’t get past, making you wonder if they actually believe it or if they’re using it to turn opinion [although the days of slam-dunk Fundy support are declining fast.] Be sure to watch the Pat Buchanan video, for the Neo-Religious opinion. Last piece — the common sense of long-ignored General Odom.

The only thing that’s stopped the Bushies from launching their Third War thus far is the disintegration of the home front — as good news goes, that pretty much sucks, doesn’t it! Amazing times, my dears.

Jude

Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says
Focus on Al-Qaeda Now Diminishing
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
Saturday, April 12, 2008; Front Page

Last week’s violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran’s “malign” influence, the officials said.

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.

During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.

With “al-Qaeda in retreat and disarray” in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, “we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. . . . The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order.”

Partly in response to advice from Petraeus and Crocker, the administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them. The review stems from an internal conclusion, following last week’s fighting, that the administration lacked a comprehensive understanding and a sophisticated approach.

President Bush reiterated yesterday that if Iran continues to help militias in Iraq, “then we’ll deal with them,” saying in an interview with ABC News that “we’re learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes” for infiltrating or sending equipment.

But he also reaffirmed that he has no desire to go to war with Tehran. Saying that his job is to “solve these issues diplomatically,” Bush suggested heightened interest in reaching a solution with other countries. “You can’t solve these problems unilaterally. You’re going to need a multilateral forum.”

Iran has long been seen as a spoiler in Iraq, with such strong ties to all of the major Shiite political and militia groups, including that of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that other Arab countries have begun to regard Iraq as almost a client state of Iran.

The recent fighting in Basra, which began when Maliki launched a military offensive against the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, revealed a threat and an opportunity, officials said.

U.S. military officials said that much of the plentiful, high quality weaponry the militia used in Basra and in rocket attacks against the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located, was recently manufactured in Iran. At the same time, the militia’s improved targeting and tactics indicated stepped-up Iranian training.

Interrogations of four leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force captured in Iraq in December 2006 and January 2007 have also bolstered U.S. conclusions that portions of Sadr’s militia are directed from Tehran.

Despite earlier indications that Iranian backing for Iraqi armed groups and the flow of Iranian arms have waned, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that “this action in Basra was very convincing that indeed they haven’t.” Basra “gave us much more insight into their involvement in many activities.”

Gates, who appeared with Mullen at a Pentagon news conference, said of Iran: “We are going to be as aggressive as we possibly can be inside Iraq in trying to counter their efforts.” Iraqi security operations in Basra, he said, have been “a real eye-opener” for Maliki’s government.

Petraeus told Congress that Maliki had launched the offensive hastily and with inadequate preparation, leading to a standoff and the need to call in U.S. air support. During the first days of the Basra operation, U.S. officials were sharply critical of Maliki’s timing and performance; some worried that the attack against Sadr forces was less an offensive against what he called “criminals” in Basra than it was an attempt to win political advantage over a rival Shiite group before upcoming elections.

Iran’s brokering of a tentative cease-fire among Shiite political groups and the militia in Tehran added to U.S. consternation.

“The importance of Iranian influence in facilitating the discussion between different political factions was of significant importance,” Petraeus told Pentagon reporters yesterday. Administration officials worried that Iran appeared in control of events in Iraq, while the United States seemed weak and uninformed.

But more recently, U.S. officials have seen a possible advantage in the situation. Maliki’s willingness to go after fellow Shiites attracted support from other political groups in Iraq, including Sunnis and Kurds, that have long been suspicious of his sectarian leanings. It also gave Washington a talking point to use with Sunni Arab governments in the region that have shunned him. “It’s an opportunity to make him look better inside Iraq and to make a better argument to the Arabs,” an official said.

The administration has long tried in vain to build Arab diplomatic and economic support for the Iraqi government. But the Arabs, led by Saudi Arabia, consider Shiite Iran a competitor for regional dominance and have rejected Maliki as “a stooge for Tehran,” as one U.S. official called him.

“The Saudis appear to feel that the current Iraqi government is pretty much in thrall to Iran,” said a State Department official involved in Middle East policy. The administration’s hope, “in the wake of Maliki’s decisions on Basra,” the official said, “is that the Saudis will take a step back and take another look.”

In a news conference Thursday, Crocker dismissed Arab concerns about a recent visit to Baghdad by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “It’s not the fact of the Ahmadinejad visit, but the absence of visits by other neighbors that it’s important to focus on. There hasn’t been a single visit, even by an Arab cabinet minister, to Baghdad. As Iraq grapples with the challenges Iran is posing, it could certainly do with some Arab support.”

After consultations with Crocker and Petraeus this week, Bush cut short their Washington visit and dispatched them to Riyadh. During a luncheon at The Washington Post, Crocker said that at a White House meeting Thursday morning, they “reviewed where we are in Iraq.”

The message to the Saudis, he said, “is going to be . . . it is time, more than time, for the Arab states to step forward and engage constructively with Iraq. Get their embassies open, get ambassadors on the ground, consider visits, implement debt relief, treat Iraq like the country it is, which is a central part of the Arab world.” ++

Staff writers Peter Baker and Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.

Cheney cold-shouldered
Dick Cheney’s belligerence and aggressive anti-Iran rhetoric is driving Arab nations into the arms of Russia
Robert Fox, Guardian UK
April 12, 2008

There is talk of new wars across the Middle East this summer - and there is nothing new about that. What is new is the reaction of America’s closest allies in the Arab world to the latest outbreak of belligerent rhetoric. Led by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Egypt, they have indicated they don’t like the war talk from Vice-President Cheney and his team.

Furthermore, they’re hedging their bets. While not exactly cosying up to Moscow they have opened up new lines of diplomacy with the Russians on a range of issues from regional security to nuclear technology, and joining the World Trade Organisation.

Israel has been carrying out a series of emergency civil defence drills, with officials warning of possible simultaneous attacks from Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories this summer.

On last month’s tour of Middle Eastern capitals, Dick Cheney is reported to have blamed Iran and Syria as the primary sources for mischief in the Middle East. Both are seen as the sponsors of Hizbullah and Hamas. Damascus is the prime base for Sunni extremist groups now operating in Iraq, while Tehran is seen as the prime sponsor of trouble in the Shia communities.

And on top of all that there remain Iran’s nuclear ambitions - with President Ahmadinejad announcing only a few days ago that the Iranian nuclear energy authority now has 6,000 more centrifuges up and running to enrich nuclear fuel.

The Cheney narrative of “not allowing Iran to go nuclear on my watch” has had its cover somewhat blown by recent revelations that the US has been talking quietly with Iran for some years.

One of the suggestions was that Iran would have fuel enriched outside the country, but a certain amount on enrichment could go in Iran itself, provided there is international supervision. The talks even looked at having an international approval and surveillance committee on which the Iranians said they would allow one American member.

Given the possibilities that some sort of dialogue between Washington and Tehran might bear fruit, the Arab powers were alarmed at the belligerence of Cheney’s message and rhetoric on his recent tour. It sounded to them that he still very much wanted to attack Iran, or Syria, or both.

No sooner had Cheney departed than President Mubarak took off for Moscow to discuss cooperation on nuclear energy and programmes with the Russians. A few days after that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council States said they would open talks with Russia about WTO membership.

The inference is clear: the conservative Arab states now believe that, in the short to medium term at least, Russia is as good a bet for containing the ambitions of Shia Iran as a Republican regime in Washington. It will not have escaped their attention that some of the leading Iran-bashers of the Washington thinktank circuit, notably John Bolton and Robert Kagan have quit team Bush to join team John McCain.

So Russia is back in the Middle East and Mediterranean security game in a big way. Moreover it is also back in the oil security game in a big way. Moscow has just struck a big gas export deal through an alliance of its own Gazprom and Italy’s ENI for the export of gas from Libya. It seems a similar deal with Algeria involving Gazprom and ENI is now on the cards.

By their misguided belligerency, Dick Cheney and co appear to have undone the legacy of their hero Ronald Reagan in isolating Russia at the end of the Cold War. It is even being whispered that the princes in Riyhadh want to sign an arms deal and defence pact with Moscow.

So Russia appears to be riding high in the Arab Middle East in a way that it hasn’t since the days of Gamal Abdul Nasser and his vision of Pan-Arab socialism. Interestingly, we haven’t been hearing too much from Vice-President Cheney these past few weeks. ++

Cheney on the Warpath Again?
Snipped from Dan Froomkin, WaPo
Friday, April 11, 2008

Vice President Cheney went on right-wing talk radio yesterday with a dramatic new argument for preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, casting the Iranian leadership as apocalyptic zealots who yearn for a nuclear conflagration.

Cheney also notably refused to comment about any recent conversations he may have had with Israeli leaders about the possibility of their bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. Some observers suspect Cheney of encouraging Israel to attack Iran as a proxy.

Conventional wisdom in Washington has it that Cheney and other supporters of military action against Iran were sidelined after a National Intelligence Estimate last November reported that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

But the vice president sounded anything but chastened yesterday, speaking with two of his favorite media enablers. In fact, he sounded like the NIE never happened.

Here he is talking to Sean Hannity:

Hannity: “What did you make of Senator Barack Obama’s comments that he would talk to [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier who’s repeatedly threatened to blow up and remove Israel from the state — from the map, the world map, and obviously is pursuing some nuclear capability?”

Cheney: “Well, he is, and I think the position we’ve taken with respect to that is that we would be prepared to talk when they stopped enriching uranium. Of course, they’ve never met that condition, so we haven’t had talks at that level.

“But Ahmadinejad is I think a very dangerous man. On the one hand, he has repeatedly stated that he wants to destroy Israel. He also has — is a man who believes in the return of the 12th Imam; and that the highest honor that can befall a man is that he should die a martyr in facilitating the return of the 12th Imam.

“It’s a radical, radical point of view. Bernard Lewis once said, mutual assured destruction in the Soviet-U.S. relationship in the Cold War meant deterrence, but mutual assured destruction with Ahmadinejad is an incentive. You have to be concerned about that.”

The 12th Imam? What’s that about? Just over two hours later, Hugh Hewitt was happy to indulge Cheney on that very issue.

Hewitt: “Do you — Mr. Vice President, do you have a personal sense of whether or not the Iranian leadership is actually motivated by this end-times, bring-back-the-12th-Imam sort of theology that we’ve read so much about?”

Cheney: “Well, I’ve read about it, too. I don’t know that that motivates all of the leadership. The one guy who talks about it repeatedly is Ahmadinejad. And — in other words, a report even at one point that when he went to Iraq on a visit, that at least on one occasion, he insisted on there being a vacant chair at the table for the 12th Imam. And it’s a — it’s hard to tell. I mean, if I look at what his beliefs supposedly are, the allegation that the — a return of the 12th Imam is something to be much desired, and that the best contribution that a man can make is to die a martyr facilitating that return, and all that goes with it — I always think of Bernard Lewis, who said that mutual assured destruction during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviets meant peace and stability and deterrence, but mutual assured destruction in the hands of Ahmadinejad may just be an incentive. It’s a worrisome proposition.”

Hewitt: “If they actually possess nuclear weapons, do you think they’re deterable in the way that the Soviets were, or is that what you’re getting at, that they might actually use them because it’s part of the theological justification for their — ”

Cheney: “Well, I think we have to be careful, obviously — it’s a difficult kind of a judgment to make. I think we do have an obligation to listen to what they’re saying. And there’s a great temptation, when he says truly outrageous things, for example, about the destruction of Israel, for people to write that off and say, well, he doesn’t mean it, it’s just rhetoric. But you can’t do that. And I certainly am — I know the Israelis well enough, and I was just there a couple of weeks ago, to know there isn’t any way they’re prepared to ignore those kinds of statements coming out of Tehran. They have to take them seriously, given their history. And I think they perceive the possibility of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons as a fundamental threat to the very survival of the state of Israel.”

Hewitt: “Did you talk with the Israelis in any way you can discuss about action against Israel — against Iran’s nuclear capability?”

Cheney: “No, I couldn’t talk about those matters here.”

The 12th Imam

Cheney’s talk of the 12th Imam marks his revival of an old neocon chestnut.

The 12th Imam, or the mahdi, is considered by devout Shiite Muslims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who disappeared in the ninth century and will reappear before judgment day to end tyranny and promote justice.

The man Cheney cites as an authority on Iranian apocalyptic thinking, controversial mideast scholar Bernard Lewis, hinted in an Aug. 8, 2006, Wall Street Journal op-ed that Ahmadinejad might be planning a nuclear attack on Israel just two weeks later, on the date in the Islamic calendar when the Prophet Muhammad made his mystical journey to Jerusalem.

“This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world,” Lewis wrote. “It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.”

Needless to say, the day went by without incident.

Noah Feldman wrote in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 29, 2006, that

“the relative absence of a contemporary Shiite trend to messianic brinkmanship suggests that Ahmadinejad’s recent emphasis on the mahdi may be interpreted more in terms of an attempt to summon [Ayotollah] Khomeini’s legacy and Iran’s revolutionary moment than as a desperate willingness to bring the nation to the edge of war. . . .

“Ahmadinejad surely understands the consequences of using a nuclear bomb, and Shiite Islam, even in its messianic incarnation, still falls short of inviting nuclear retaliation and engendering collective suicide.”

As for Wiping Israel Off the Map

Back in March, William Branigin of The Washington Post shed some light on the administration’s continued insistence that the Iranian government had expressed its desire to wipe Israel off the map.

Branigin wrote:

“In an October 2005 speech to a conference on a ‘World without Zionism,’ Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by a state-run Iranian news agency as agreeing with a statement by Iran’s late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that ‘Israel must be wiped off the map.’ Iran’s foreign minister later said the comment had been incorrectly translated from Farsi and that Ahmadinejad was ‘talking about the [Israeli] regime,’ which Iran does not recognize and wants to see collapse.

“According to Farsi-speaking commentators including Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan, Ahmadinejad’s exact quote was, ‘The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.’ Cole has written that Ahmadinejad was not calling’Nazi-style extermination of a people,’ but was expressing the wish that the Israeli government would disappear just as the shah of Iran’s regime had collapsed in 1979.”

Whither U.S. Policy?

Warren P. Strobel writes for McClatchy Newspapers:

“The Bush administration has been divided over Iran policy almost since the day the president took office and, according to a variety of officials, it remains so today.

“One faction, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and including a sprinkling of officials at the Pentagon, State Department and elsewhere, has argued that before Bush leaves office in January, the administration should use military force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and punish Iran for supporting international terrorism and thwarting U.S. aims in Iraq. . . .

“A second faction, led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and much of the uniformed military and the intelligence community, opposes military strikes in favor of continued sanctions, diplomatic pressure and talks with Iran under certain conditions.

“This faction appears, for now, to retain the upper hand.”

Well, maybe.

AFP’s Olivier Knox notes that Bush overtly threatened Iran yesterday in his speech about Iraq.

Knox writes, “Bush on Thursday lumped Iran with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group as ‘two of the greatest threats to America in this new century.’ . . .

Bush “coupled the rhetorical blast with a clear warning that he would not hesitate to use force if the Islamic republic targets US interests in its strife-torn neighbor. . .

“Iran ‘has a choice to make. It can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties. Or it can continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups, which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran,’ he said.

“‘If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests, and our troops, and our Iraqi partners,’ he said.”

Knox notes a history of hyperbole from Bush on this topic.

“It was far from the first time that the deeply unpopular US president has dramatically described Iraq as the front line against Tehran and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network as he works to revive anemic US support for the war.

“In August 2007, Bush warned that Iran’s suspect atomic program threatened to place the entire Middle East ‘under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.’

“In October 2007, Bush told world leaders that preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons was necessary ‘if you’re interested in avoiding World War III.’

“On two occasions, in March 2008 and in August 2007, Bush wrongly asserted that Iran had openly declared that it wants nuclear weapons. The White House later said he had erred. . . .

“Bush has refused to rule out using force in the nuclear standoff, fueling worries that he will attack Iran — which he famously called part of an ‘axis of evil’ with North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — before leaving office.

“In October, US Vice President Dick Cheney stoked those concerns when he warned Iran to suspend uranium enrichment or face ’serious consequences’ — the very language in the UN resolution on Iraq that the White House says justified the March 2003 invasion.”

Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker write in the New York Times:

“Mr. Bush’s focus on Iran, while not new, reflected deepening concerns in the administration and the Pentagon about suspected Iranian support for some extremists. They say that support became increasingly evident late last month during the indecisive Iraqi operation to wrest control of Basra from Shiite militias and more recently in a spate of rocket attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad.”

And the neocons are clearly restless.

Matt Corley writes for ThinkProgress.org:

“On his radio show this morning, Bill Bennett told the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol — who had a personal meeting with President Bush yesterday — that a ‘conclusion’ he drew was that the hearing was ‘less an argument for getting out of Iraq than going into Iran.’ After suggesting that Iran may ‘have to pay some price at some point on their own soil,’ Kristol said that President Bush authorizing an attack of some kind before he leaves office is not ‘out of the question’”:

Bennett: “Do you think there’s any chance that, and we won’t ask you to reveal anything confidential, do you think there’s any chance that we might take some action against some aspect of the Ira — against Iran, let’s put it that way, before the president leaves office?”

Kristol: “We didn’t really talk about that, in all honesty, directly. I don’t think it’s out of the question. I think people are overdoing how much of a lame duck the president is.”

Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer takes a slightly different but also alarming tack in his Washington Post opinion column. Citing the “apocalyptic and messianic” views of the Iranian leaders, he endorses a form of deterrence that could actually increase tensions. Krauthammer writes:

“President Bush’s greatest contribution to nuclear peace would be to issue the following declaration . . .: ‘It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.’”

What seems to be a new drumbeat for military action has thus far remained under the radar of the mainstream media. When my colleagues do take notice, I hope they point out that the advocates of a strike against Iran are the same people who enthusiastically advocated the invasion of Iraq, making similarly authoritative-sounding declarations about the uselessness of diplomacy and the easy triumph of military might.

Opinion Watch

The USA Today editorial board writes:

“The Iraq war has featured a changing cast of U.S. adversaries. Saddam Hussein. Sunni insurgents. Foreign fighters. Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

“In the latest shift, the two top U.S. officials in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, focused in this week’s congressional testimony on ’special groups’ — Iranian-backed militias — as the greatest long-term threat to Iraqi democracy.

“On Thursday, President Bush endorsed the officials’ troop recommendations and again recast the enemy. Iraq, he said toward the end of his speech, is ‘the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: al-Qaeda and Iran.’

“There’s no question that al-Qaeda and Iran represent threats. But to conflate the two is disingenuous and misleading. . . .

“Iran is a strategic adversary that hasn’t attacked the U.S. homeland. Its engagement with Iraq, its neighbor, is inevitable. . . .

“[T]he United States and Iran are facing off in a duel almost as complex as that between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This requires a whole range of tools, beyond Bush’s bellicose warning on Thursday that Tehran ‘has a choice to make.’ . . .

“Sunni al-Qaeda and Shiite Iran pose different challenges and require separate strategies. About the only thing they have in common is that neither would have a foothold in Iraq today had the United States not invaded and then mismanaged the aftermath.” ++

King George and Iran’s Inalienable Rights
Gordon Prather, AntiWar
April 12, 2008

Great Zot! After first “Reaffirming its commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the need for all States Party to that Treaty to comply fully with all their obligations, and recalling the right of States Party, in conformity with Articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination”, on March 3, 2008, the UN Security Council – allegedly “Acting under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations” – perversely proceeded to “reaffirm” its “decision” of 23 December 2006 that Iran “shall, without further delay, suspend”

“a) all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA; and

“(b) work on all heavy water-related projects, including the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water, also to be verified by the IAEA”

The blatant irrationality boggles the mind. And it’s barely conceivable that the reason the mainstream media didn’t report on the irrationality of that resolution to you was that their minds got boggled, long ago, early in the reign of King George.

UNSC Resolution 1803 also imposed on Iran new sanctions and the MSM did manage to report that.

However, most of the sanctions were unrelated to Iran’s nuclear programs – all of which have long been “verifiably” subject to a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, as required by the NPT. The MSM didn’t report that to you, either.

Which brings us to the official reaction – a Note Verbale, dated March 26, 2008 – sent by the Iranians to the IAEA Secretariat, to be forwarded to the Secretary General of the United Nations and all Member States.

It is an absolutely brilliant expose of King George’s efforts to not only corrupt the IAEA Board of Governors and UN Security Council, but to undermine the IAEA Statute, the NPT and UN Charter, itself.

In particular, Iran correctly notes that

“Involvement of the Security Council in the Iranian peaceful nuclear program is in full contravention with the organizational, Statutory and safeguards requirements governing the IAEA practices and procedures. Furthermore, the substantive and procedural legal requirements, that are necessary for engaging the Security Council in the issues raised by the Agency, have been totally ignored in this regard.”

In particular –

“The Security Council has never determined Iran’s Nuclear Program as a threat to international peace and security under Article 39 of the UN Charter and, thus, it could not adopt any measures against the Islamic Republic of Iran under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”

Furthermore –

“The Security Council, as a UN organ created by Member States, is subject to legal requirements, and is obliged to comply with the same international normative rules that the Member States are bound to. The Council shall observe all international norms, in particular the UN Charter and the peremptory norms of international law, in the process of its decision making and in its taking actions. Needless to say that any measure adopted in contradiction to such rules and principles will be void of any legally binding effects.”

IAEA Director-General ElBaradei declared in his oral report to the IAEA Board of Governors on March 3, 2008 that the “reason” the Iranian IAEA dossier had originally been forwarded to the Security Council “was ambiguities related to its enrichment program in the past” and that “this issue is no longer considered outstanding.” Therefore, the Iranians argue, “no pretext or justification remains either for the engagement of the Security Council in this regard or any request for suspension.”

Prior to their dossier being forwarded to the Security Council, Iran had voluntarily implemented for more than two and a half years an Additional Protocol to their Safeguards Agreement. ElBaradei has just reported that the additional information continues to voluntarily provide is “similar” to that which would be required by a ratified Additional Protocol.

However, Iran is only legally bound to accept and implement the basic Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement. Requiring Iran to implement an Additional Protocol – which recent Security Council Resolutions have done – to which Iran has not formally expressed its consent “contradicts the established principles of international law of treaties.”

Now, according to the IAEA Statute, the Director-General and his designated inspectors “shall have access at all times to all places” in an IAEA member state as necessary “to account for [Safeguarded] source and special fissionable materials” and “to determine whether there is compliance with the undertaking against use in furtherance of any military purpose.”

When IAEA inspectors do determine that safeguarded materials have been used “in furtherance of any military purpose,” they “shall” report such “non-compliance” to the Director-General who “shall” thereupon transmit the report to the Board of Governors.

As the Iranian Note Verbale argues, IAEA inspectors have never made such report to ElBaradei about Iran.

In fact, ElBaradei has repeatedly reported to the Board that “all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities.”

Furthermore, on August 21, 2007, ElBaradei had come to an “understanding” with Iran on a “Work Plan” for resolving outstanding “issues” – some of them actually none of IAEA’s beeswax, and many of them originally raised in the summer of 2005, by King George’s munchkins, based upon “studies” allegedly contained on an stolen laptop computer, said to belong to an Iranian engineer (by then supposedly deceased) tangentially related to the implementation of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement.

According to the Iranians, ElBaradei has just reported to the IAEA Board that the Work Plan has been “fully implemented and nothing more remains to be done in this regard.”

Moreover, Iran has charged that, “by providing false and erroneous information to the IAEA,” the United States and three European countries [E3] “have prevented the Agency from fulfilling its real tasks on important issues such as the prevention of actual proliferation, disarmament, and contemplating a mechanism to effectively verify the nuclear activities of the non-parties to the NPT, particularly the Zionist regime that is continuing to develop nuclear weapons in the region.”

Iran claims to have initiated in 1974 – the year Iran concluded its IAEA Safeguards Agreement as required by the NPT – the idea of establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East and the UN General Assembly has adopted a supporting resolution every year since then.

Why hasn’t one been established? Well, it seems King George and his predecessors – for some unfathomable reason – keeps vetoing it. ++

Buchanan On McLaughlin: Fifty-Fifty Chance We Bomb Iran By Fall
Candace Talmadge, The Huffington Post
April 13, 2008

It was an otherwise normal day in the Land of the McLaughing Group. John got to bellow, “The answer is HILLARY.” And nobody minded that they weren’t as relentlessly dogmatic in the Papism as Pat Buchanan, and the whole panel kinda sorta agreed on the issue of China and the Olympics, but because this was the McLaughlin Group, they all agreed to pillory each other with loud sounds from their cakeholes for our amusement. But, about halfway through the show, Pat Buchanan said something that didn’t amuse - not one little bit I’m afraid!

BUCHANAN: But I’ll tell you what’s coming, John. Petraeus pointed right at the special groups supported by Iran, as the main problem now. They are firing rockets into the Green Zone, they’re responsible for Basra. The president said that Iran better not make the wrong choice. We’re looking at 140,000 troops there by the end of the year, and very possibly airstrikes in Iran before this fall.

Oh. Fantastic.

[Open link for video]

Later, Pat went back to this scary imagining, predicting: “Fifty-fifty chance of U.S. airstrikes on Iran by October.” Paging Dr. Strangelove! ++

William E. Odom: Iraq Testimony from a Different General
April 10, 2008

We’ve heard it all before.

Despite all the hot air it generated, testimony on Iraq this week before the Senate Armed Services Committee offered little in the way of real news or useful insight. Hiding behind Army Gen. David Petraeus’s medals and uniform, President Bush sent his proxy to Capitol Hill to repeat the administration’s threadbare mantras yet another time.

Just six days earlier, however, a different high-ranking U.S. military officer spoke to the senators - Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, now retired. “The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims,” his testimony began.

“The decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves,” Odom explained. “Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.

“This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications.”

Persuading the Sunnis not to shoot at U.S. troops comes at a high financial toll. ” . . . Our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty,” Odom pointed out. “I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost of in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased.”

In other words, the short-sighted tactic of paying one faction not to shoot at U.S. troops is setting Iraq up for long-term fighting between multiple factions by giving one side the funds needed to buy arms and pay militia members.

Odom also made hash of claims that Al Qaeda will have a staging area in Iraq for further attacks against the United States if we withdraw our entire military presence.

“The Sunnis will soon destroy Al Qaeda if we leave Iraq,” Odom said. “The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest Al Qaeda. To understand why, one need only take note of the Al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on Internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime.

“As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of Congress are aligned with Al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.”

That should give all of us pause. Odom’s entire testimony is 180 degrees opposite of what we keep hearing from clueless pundits on all sides and nightly news broadcasts.

So what do we do now? As a first step, Odom urged withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S. troops rapidly but in good order. “Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping U.S. strategy in the region,” he said.

Next, he advised the senators, is to establish a new aim of regional stability, “not a meaningless victory in Iraq.” To make progress toward that stability, however, the United States must alter its approach to Iran.

“If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support of Taliban groups in Afghanistan,” Odom pointed out. “Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a U.S. attack on Iran.

“Iran’s policy toward Iraq would have to change radically as we withdraw,” Odom continued. “It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.”

Odom concluded: “Naysayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran’s regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a U.S. withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies’ interest.”

No one has said it better. If we possess even a straw of wisdom, we will follow this general’s advice. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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